MINNEAPOLIS — Josh Donaldson has no regrets and no fear. The Twins designated hitter did not regret his comments about Gerrit Cole using an illegal sticky substance that set off the firestorm that has overshadowed the series of two struggling teams and had the baseball world watching Wednesday night. He had no fear about stepping in the box against the Yankees’ ace, either.
“I’m not in his brain and if he does, if he decides to do whatever he wants to do, do it,” Donaldson said before Wednesday night’s game at Target Field.
The slugger had weighed in on the controversy Saturday, asking rhetorically why Cole’s RPMs (rotations per minute) on his pitches had dropped in his last start, days after four minor league pitchers were suspended for using an illegal adhesive to get a better grip on the baseball and manipulate their RPMs.
Cole’s response on Tuesday to a question about if he had ever used Spider Tack, the stickiest stuff at the center of the controversy, was awkward and interpreted by many as a tacit admission. Donaldson saw it too.
“That’s him and his camp. That I can’t control, his response,” Donaldson said to a group of reporters on the field. “I think at the end of the day, like I said, time is going to tell what happens. And I’m not in his position so I don’t have to wear that when I sleep at night.”
Donaldson did say he wasn’t intending to single out Cole.
“I don’t regret anything that I’ve said. I mean, first off when I say something, it’s been thought through before. It’s not just something on a whim,” Donaldson said. “I would say this with Gerritt Cole, he was the first guy to pitch, since the suspensions had happened, and he’s the first guy that you can see spin rates going down. We’re going off the interview that was done about four or five days ago. Since then, there’s been 12 or more guys already, whose RPMs magically dropped in the last week.
So it’s not just Gerrit Cole,” Donaldson said. “I want to get that out. With that being said, we’ll see how it plays out.”
Donaldson said he was speaking out for the hitters, who find themselves striking out more, and the offenses struggling against pitchers who have taken what has been a long-standing practice of using pine tar or rosin and sunscreen and pushed it to ridiculous limits. Donaldson said he had heard from 10 to 15 other players who told him they appreciate that he spoken out.
Cole had alluded to the “practices and customs,” that had been handed down over generations of pitchers in his answer to whether he had used Spider Tack. Donaldson isn’t buying it.
“So you mean to tell me for over 100 years, guys have been throwing the baseball wrong. No. And when it becomes league average, you know it’s something simple. It’s not that not everybody has the ability to make a little hand adjustment here or here or here. No,” Donaldson said when asked if this was part of the practices and customs of the game. “They’re getting their hands on something which is helping them immediately to where I’ve faced guys who probably quite frankly, I’ve had a lot of success on and then all of a sudden their stuff has improved, just like dramatically. I’m not talking about just a little bit without seeing any type of mechanical changes.”
Ironically enough, Donaldson’s interest in figuring this out began when he was teammates with Trevor Bauer, who lit the fire of suspicion about Cole three years ago. He tweeted his suspicions that the Astros were using a sticky substance to increase spin rates. Cole had just been traded there and had an immediate increase. Now, Bauer is answering for his own RPM increase and sudden drop off.
